Jasmine Cheatham
10/28/14

When writing you have to make sure that you are motivating the reader into reading more. As mentioned in class, people are going to be more interested and engaged to a problem they have been in or a topic that most interest them. When writing make sure to incorporate a question that can answered in writing. I like the idea of conceptual problems. This is when the writer wants readers to understand or believe. This gives the reader more detail on your position as a writer and why you have chosen that position. When I write in most cases it is about things that we have learned in class or in the course material. In English 304 I enjoy that we are able to pick topics that we show interest in. This helps me as a writer and a student to use my prior knowledge and creativity and just flow out whatever comes to mind.  

Jasmine Cheatham

When writing you want to make sure that the end of your sentence is clear, strong, shows cohesion and coherence. Readers want organization, by organizing your sentences you as a writer can help manage long and complex phrases and clauses as well as new information, particularly unfamiliar technical terms. I learned that when you are writing sentences they should be simple and direct because you can’t assume your reader knows what you are referring to, you don’t want to keep them guessing. I think this is important to do when you are correcting your draft of a paper. I like in class how Anna said that all babies “papers” are born ugly. Personally I like that idea because I can let all of my ideas flow and get my points across without having to be super cautious of if I’m doing the paper right. Words and structure of a sentence can effect the voice the reader is going to have. During class when we were doing nominalizations I learned what a lot of teachers were referring to by how to structure a sentence. Prior to this class teacher’s would make comments on my paper about changing my sentence structure and never gave an example of what they were talking about. I would typically just change the sentence around and was done. I wasn’t aware of the structure she was refereeing to. In this lesson Williams talks about stress. Stress of a sentence can make your paper strong. How you end your sentences as mentioned earlier can determine how the reader reads your paper and their judgments about it. As well as having a strong ending as a writer you need to have a strong introduction of a sentence. Emphasizing will help create a clearer, organized, and direct sentence. I need to work on emphasizing the right words in my sentences. 

Jasmine Cheatham

Lesson 5

10/22/14

When writing you should always make sure that your sentences are connecting. This lesson taught me about the way your sentences should be. Your sentences should all flow together as well as having cohesion. I learned the differences between cohesion and coherence, I wasn’t clear on either concepts.  When writing you should present the reader with information that they are already familiar with and then introduce your new information.  As discussed in class, you never want to have your readers clueless. By giving them old information first they can connect your new information and apply it. Sentence structure is important when writing because it keeps your thoughts organized as well as making it easier for your reader to follow what you are saying. Referring back to cohesion, you have to make sure that your sentences fit together and that you’re not just jumping around from topic to topic. By incorporating characters into your writing that will give the reader some previous information, it is important to have them in the front of your sentences.  Overall this lesson taught me about a few concepts and how they work. I know that I will need to work on my writing to make sure that I continue to connect my writing and making sure that it flows. I sometimes bounce my ideas around in my paper because they just come to me as I write and it makes my paper structure unorganized. 

Jasmine Cheatham

10/16/17

Lesson 4

By adding characters to your sentences doesn't leave your readers clueless. In some cases there isn't a need for characters and in these cases as a writer you should have a verb; who is doing what? As a writer you should try to use active voice versus passive because passive adds words and usually draws away from the subject/action. You should only use passive when the agent of an action is self-evident or if it lets you replace a long subject with a short one or when it gives a coherent sequence of subjects. I wrote these out because this is something that is new to me. To sum up there are appropriate times to use different writing tactics. Always make sure that you a subject and a verb or a character and an action in your writing. Be as clear as possible and make sure that it is something your reader can understand.

Jasmine Cheatham

10/16/14

Lesson 3

This section of the book talks about the usage of verbs/actions, subjects and clarity. When writing you have to make sure that what you are trying to say is clear, direct and to the point. Referring back to class discussions every draft or piece of writing may seem clear to the writer but as a reader it may be unclear. In this lesson it talks about this as well. Williams suggest that we all read into our own writing what we want readers to get out of it. One of the reasons being is because as a writer you know the message you are trying to convey so you fill your page with your own ideas and thoughts about a particular topic or subject. Again, being clear about your topic is important especially for your audience. 

Jasmine Cheatham

10/9/14

Style: Lesson 2

This lesson is talking about correctness. The “correctness” or flow of your sentence dictates a clearer and direct understanding. In class we had corrected those sentences on a handout and how the order of a sentence makes a difference in the subject that you are discussing. I liked how this lesson discussed what is considered Standard English and the rules that come with that and the change that has occurred with Standard English. In elementary school some teachers would teach us to use words like “ain’t” while some preferred words like are not.  Teachers teach how they were taught and I just found it interesting how this comes into play with teaching styles. This lesson definitely helped me with grammatical issues that I have come across and explained the reasoning they are errors. In most cases teacher will tell you that you need to change the word or structure without explaining why. 

Question: What are double negatives?

Jasmine Cheatham

10/8/14

Style: Lesson 1

I enjoyed that we went over some of the concerns addressed in this lesson in class. It gave me a more clear understanding of what the author was discussing. In this lesson authors Joseph Williams and Joseph Bizup talked about clarity and understanding discussing the importance that writing should have both. You can tell a lot about ones understanding of a subject through their writing. Some can be direct and clear while others may be abstract and dense. As mentioned in class people tend to have an “ugly” draft when they are writing about something they know a lot about and/or are interested in. Personally I have experienced both unclear and abstract writing and clear and direct. I feel that the more knowledge I know about a subject the more focused my writing will be. Sometimes I feel that my writing will too be structured based on the format given to me by a professor. I am now dealing with a teacher that has given the class a writing assignment and isn’t clear herself on what she wants from us. She hasn’t given feedback and her instructions are unclear. I have attempted to make my paper as focused as possible seeing as how it is a topic I am not strongly familiar with. By her having unclear and dense instructions it is tilting some students’ papers that way as well.